Georgina Adam, the doyenne of art market reporters, gives a comprehensive overview of the Abu Dhabi Art Fair in the Financial Times:

Christie’s owner François Pinault, artist Jeff Koons and Louvre museum director Henri Loyrette were just a few of the art world movers and shakers who flew into Abu Dhabi this week for the launch of Abu Dhabi Art. The event, a “cultural platform” including an art fair, was put together at breakneck speed this summer by the Emirati authorities and continues until tomorrow. The fair counts just 50 dealers but includes heavyweights such as Gagosian, White Cube, Hauser & Wirth, L&M Arts, PaceWildenstein and Thaddaeus Ropac; for many, the prospect of selling art into museums on the multibillion-dollar Saadiyat Island project acted as a powerful magnet.

Compared with the previous, French-organised event, the new fair represents a quantum leap, with a stellar patrons’ committee including Pinault, Koons and architect Norman Foster; the quality – and value – of the art on offer have also leapt upwards.Continue Reading

Familiarity breeds contempt, the old adage goes. Perhaps that explains why this photo of Carla Bruni, now France’s first lady, failed to get anywhere near the reserve price during a Drouot auction over the weekend. It shows that the $91,000 price paid in New York for the same image during the April photography sales was just a fluke driven by the excitement over the former model and pop singer’s recent marriage to President Sarkozy.

New York Magazine says Art Basel Miami is going to be the same as it ever was this year, only different:

In a nod to the realities of the economy, Basel Miami is actually constraining some large-scale parties, says Lee Schrager of Southern Wine & Spirits, the fair’s liquor supplier and sponsor. That said, “there seem to be more non-official parties than ever this year.” Luxury goods are back on the beach. Montcler and Cartier are both hosting events. Pucci, which skipped last year, returns. Collectors are back, too: More museum groups than ever have arranged to tour the satellite Art Miami fair this year, says Nick Korniloff, its director—over a dozen.Continue Reading

Sarah Douglas conducted a wide-ranging interview with dealer Larry Gagosian published in The National for the Abu Dhabi art fair:

To Gagosian, however, the current slump cannot compare to the devastation of the depression that struck the art market at the start of the 1990s. “The early 1990s were an absolute nightmare,” he says. “It was brutal. I remember going to Sotheby’s in November of 1990. And usually after an auction you meet up with some friends – collectors and co-workers and other dealers – and you go out for dinner and have a good time. Back then, nobody wanted to talk to anybody. You were numb. You walked in, and half the auction didn’t sell. People weren’t even bidding. It was just unbelievable, because in May there had been an incredibly strong auction. Huge prices. Records for many artists. Vibrant market. It just turned on a dime. And the ensuing recession in the art market was absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my career as an art dealer. The phone literally didn’t ring.”Continue Reading

Felix Salmon had lunch with Jen Bekman, the entrepreneur who recently raised a significant amount of money to expand the business, and relates her philosophy:

“I want anyone who’s educated and even remotely affluent to feel self-conscious if they don’t have an art collection that they can talk about,” she says, and to that end she’s selling limited-edition art starting at just $20 for an 8″x10″ C-print in an edition of 200. (Hence the name.)

The editions are limited not because that makes them more likely to rise in value, necessarily, but rather because it helps to infect her buyers with the collector bug: they are incentivized to buy now, before an edition sells out; they get an experience which only a small number of other people will share; and they feel as though they’re part of a select group of people who are supporting a particular artist. Continue Reading